StevieM

Bygones.

Thanks Toups!! I appreciate the kind words. I never actually posted at Dustin's message board, and didn't realize that he had one. But I did read his page, along with Beth's page. The place where I started posting was the Coffeerooms. I think that our page there was called Todays, but we usually just called it the Coffeerooms. I believe you were Jim Reilly Jr. over there. Then there were a couple other sites we were both on, Turtle Run and Soap City. And maybe you occasionally stopped by the Connotator, the Jack and Jen page. Of course, we probably got to know each other originally on Channa's page. That was where you first came of age as a reporter.

I am not a troll. I have posted here, on occasion, for many years. Apparently, I just got moved up to Explorer, whatever that means. I have known Toups since 2001. My opinion sincerely differs from yours. We seem to look at this story--and this issue--from a different perspective. That doesn't make either one of us a troll. As far as I am concerned, the baby was TJ and Kristina's. I regard Kristina as the mother, not as the carrier for Molly. Even if the adoption had happened--which was looking less and less likely--I still would not have regarded Kristina as having been a "carrier." She would have been the expectant mother when pregnant, the new mom after giving birth, and then the birth mother after the adoption papers were signed.

Kristina absolutely was the baby's mother. Any custody battle would have been initiated by TJ and Molly. They would have been wrong to do so. Instead, they should have accepted the fact that the adoption they hoped for didn't work out. And then they should have sat down with Kristina and worked out a plan for joint parenting and joint custody.

Kristina would not have been keeping her sister's baby. She would have been keeping her own baby, rather than following through with an adoption plan. That would have been her right, both legally and morally. Willow had the right to change her mind about the adoption she had originally agreed to for her baby. She did nothing wrong when she vacated the adoption within the agreed upon window for her to rescind. The only bad guys were Julian, for illegally learning her identity and approaching her (which was inherently coercive), and Brad&Lucas for trying the challenge her right to rescind by falsely asserting that it would be damaging to the baby if he was returned to his mother, when in reality they just wanted the kid for themselves. Molly, through her actions, showed herself to be no better than Julian Jerome. Ironic, given how much she used to hate him.

It's not about being a legal expert, it is about knowing the basics. Your parental rights cannot be terminated until the child is born. And no court will issue an involuntary TPR based on your past promises while you were pregnant. I disagree that being pregnant through insemination, with a plan to surrender the baby, is that different from planning to give a baby up for adoption. The mother's feelings are the issue and in both cases it is highly possible that the expectant mother will not be able to give up her child like she thought she could. Of course other people had rights. TJ could petition the court for a paternity test. When it showed that he is the father, he would have been named the father on the birth certificate. He could have then gotten shared custody or visitation. He also could have fought hard and asked the court for sole custody. But even if he had won, Kristina would have remained the mother and had liberal visitation rights. Other people with rights are Alexis, Sonny, and Jordan. They are grandparents and, in many states, may have the right to visit with their grandchildren. Molly, on the other hand, had no rights other than those that she received from TJ and Kristina. The baby was never hers.

Apparently, I saw what happened on screen very differently than you did. It doesn't really matter to me, though. My point is that in real life Kristina would not have been seen as having issued a voluntary TPR (termination of parental rights), nor would her actions, agreements and promises have been legitimate grounds for a court to issue an involuntary TPR. I am not a lawyer or a legal expert, nor am I pretending to be. I just know a little something about the basics of adoption. The laws are set up to favor the adoptive parents when there is a conflict. But even still, there are limits. Molly couldn't benefit from a system set up to benefit adoptive parents because she never was one. She was a prospective adoptive parent, nothing more. The baby was never hers. Kristina was the mother.

I reject the moral premise of your argument. Kristina could not have known how she would feel before she got pregnant, let alone before she gave birth. And the fact that she didn't want a baby is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that she wanted the particular baby she was pregnant with--she wanted HER baby. The pain that Molly feels over her infertility, as well as the pain of a failed adoption plan, pales in comparison to the devastation that Kristina would have suffered had Molly succeeded in her goal to facilitate a coerced adoption. Molly fully understood that the adoption she had hoped for was falling apart. She understood that Kristina wanted to keep her baby. Once she recognized that, she should have let it go. She should have allowed TJ and Kristina to work out their situation pertaining to their daughter. Instead, Molly used Kristina's love for her as a weapon with which to bully her into giving up her child.

The contract was not legally binding, and that was also spoken of multiple times. Kristina was acknowledged as having the right to keep her baby. Molly could not have gone to court and forced an adoption. That is what the show said about how it works in their fictional universe. In real life, it also works that way. Kristina carried the baby, and it was biologically hers. She could only terminate her rights after the baby was born. That is how it works in most states, certainly including New York. Many states also have a waiting period and require the adoption to take place in a courtroom. And Kristina absolutely had the legal right to back out of her initially stated plan to allow Molly to adopt HER baby. In both real life and the GH universe, Kristina most definitely would have been within her rights to walk out of the hospital with her baby. Even TJ would not have been the legal father until he established his paternity, either by petitioning the court to order a paternity test, or by prevailing upon Kristina to allow him to sign the birth certificate.

No. The law is absolutely clear about this. The baby was Kristina's. She was the mother. She was never actually TJ and Molly's surrogate. That was just the term they chose to use. Kristina, like all pregnant women, including those planning an adoption, was an expectant mother. And when a pregnant woman, like Kristina, gives birth, she is the new mom. That includes women who have previously said that they are inclined to agree to an adoption. TJ was the baby's father. But Molly was not the mother. She was never the adoptive mother because there was never an adoption. Molly was the prospective adoptive parent. That means that she had reason to believe she would become a parent at a later date, but certainly not a guarantee. Even if she did ultimately adopt the baby, that still wasn't her baby that Kristina was carrying or that she gave birth to. Kristina was carrying her and TJ's baby, and she gave birth to her and TJ's baby. If the adoption had moved forward, after the child was born, then a termination of parental rights would have been issued. At that point Molly would become an adoptive mother and Kristina would become a birth mother/first mother/natural mother, or whichever term you prefer to use.

I had actually considered that possibility. Maybe she is Olivia. That would explain why she had some familiarity with people, as well as mannerisms that could allow her to pass for Ava, along with considerable effort on her part. This idea would allow that new writing team to abandon the direction that PM took the character, at least in part. It could allow for a partial "redemption" of Ava, just enough to keep her out of jail, and sharing custody of Avery. Come to think of it, Olivia being the replacement could explain why she was so determined to fight for Avery, since they could claim that she was determined to have a family of her own by raising her niece as her daughter.

I am starting to wonder if Ava has been switched out. EK and CVE's material began airing yesterday. Maybe their first big change is that Ava isn't really Ava, that she was kidnapped, is being held somewhere, and somebody else took her place. Trina said something yesterday about how "something about Ava seems off." And today, Ava had to correct herself midsentence when talking to Jagger. She said "Dr. Collins," only to stop and change it to "Kevin." Does anyone remember when GH did something similar with Helena back in 2002. She was supposed to be in prison, but she swapped places with her cousin, who was dying anyway. Luke ultimately figured it out.

Austin's murder may wind up being a little like Nikolas's attempt to kill Hayden. It was dropped for years, Nikolas never had to answer for what he did, and Shawn was put away in prison. Many years later, Shawn was released from prison and people close to Nikolas, like Spencer, knew what he had done. Elizabeth, Hayden's sister, turning states evidence against Nikolas, admittedly on an unrelated issue, also felt like a degree of vindication. Obviously, this analogy is imperfect. We all knew who put out the hit on Hayden, whereas we don't know who killed Austin. My point is that I could see this story being dropped for some time before suddenly coming up again in a prominent and significant way a few years down the line.

I think Higley was far worse. Her material in early 2003, when she wrote the show for about 5 months before JER returned, was by far the worst writing I have ever seen on a soap opera. To be fair, I think there are some people who to this day would still insist that Tom Langan was the worst ever.

Who is EB?

I think Sam was supposed to be 25-26 at the time. I believe that is what they said. Kelly Monaco would have been about 29-30.

Today's show reminded me of why I am glad that Patrick Mulcahey is leaving. He took another gratuitous shot at Hayden, implying that she just took off on her family. He did that last week too. I didn't like the way they separated Hayden and Violet to begin with, but at least previous HWs always made it clear that something was very wrong, and that Hayden did not want to be away from her daughter. I hope that whatever brings down the people running Pikeman will somehow tie into Hayden's departure and finally allow her to return to Port Charles.

I also wondered about that. The name that popped into my head was Patrick Drake. I am not sure if they ever labeled him an addict, but he was abusing pills for a little while when he thought Robin had died. After he stopped, we would still see him drinking from time to time.

Either B or C. I would like for Hayden to return to the show. But either way, Violet and Hayden need to be reunited. It was disgusting how they separated them in order to give Michael Easton the opportunity to play a single dad. Violet should have never been ripped away from her mother. I was appalled the other day when Finn said that Hayden "walked out on them." Like it was her choice. No need to clarify her total disappearance from the Earth and everyone she knew, or the threat she had been facing, or her mother's subsequent murder as a result of that threat.

Also agreed. We don't know exactly what happened. Some speculation is reasonable but there is a limit to what we can be certain about. I think it is very likely that PM is the one who suddenly decided that Kristina was gay, not bi. That was left open for years. I suspect that the new team will restore her to being bisexual, possibly even mentioning her marriage to Trey. It also seems probable that PM is the one who decided to restore Ava and Valentin to their villainous ways. Those sudden turns were quite contrary to what the show had been doing until recently and feel like the result of a change in the HW team. Again, the new HWs may decide to back off on that, to whatever extent they can. Here are some other examples of decisions that feel like they came from the HW: declaring that Marshall was misdiagnosed; and Laura and Kevin actually adopting Ace, not just raising him. I hated the decision to make Sasha the Q's cook, and I do suspect that this new aspect to her character came from Mulcahey, but we can't know for certain. Either way, I definitely think he is the one who deserves credit for writing the scene between Michael and Sasha in which it was acknowledged that it was potentially awkward that she was cooking meals for her ex-boyfriend and his family. Toups, I didn't realize that you were an NFL fan. I guess I gave into the stereotype of Canadians and assumed you were all about hockey. Go Islanders!! (next year).

Katherine Bell would flip out if she knew that Lois was going to be the spokesperson for Deception.

Michael absolutely gets the money back. As long as Jason doesn't run, the bail will be refunded. It doesn't matter if Jason is tried and found guilty. Either way, the bail money is returned to whoever paid it, including Jason himself if he had been the one to post his own bail. I do remember that back in 2004 or 2005, when many of the dead came back from Melaswen, Jennifer said something like "Can you imagine being an insurance adjuster in this town?"

Watching that scene, it felt like Spinelli and Sonny's relationship had regressed. It was like the show was ignoring a good part of the progress they have made, all so that they could give a quick history lesson in advance of Jason's return. Sonny had long since made peace with Spinelli and his oddities. He sought out his help, independent of their shared connection through Jason. He even counseled Spinelli at times, also independent of Jason. And Spinelli was far more at ease around Sonny. He reached a point where he felt he could approach him without fear. He no longer called him "Mr. Sir" and I thought he even called him Sonny at times (although I could be wrong about that last part). I also would like to point out how incorrect it was for Carly to say that Bobbie "knew not to chase revenge. My mom never gave in to her worse impulses, she rose above them." That wasn't always true. Bobbie gave in to her worst impulses on many occasions.

I have looked through this entire thread to see if anyone else noticed something that was said by Nina to Ava. Apparently, nobody thought it was worth discussing that Nina told Ava to be there for Sonny, or something to that effect. That would be taking the forgiveness he has given her to a whole new level. At the end of the day, she is still the one who is responsible for Morgan's death. And she killed Connie/Kate in cold blood. I don't think she can ever be someone who is "there for Sonny."

I think this will be the first part of the "redemption of Nikolas." My guess is that he will quickly return with Ace and say that he was just taking him out for some fresh air. Nikolas will realize--having had a few seconds to think about it--that Spencer will get arrested if Ace disappears. Then he will finally do right by his son and protect him the way a father should. After all that, Nikolas will either turn himself in to the police or persuade Esme to allow him to quietly leave town.